Sigmund Oehrl was born in Kassel, Germany on 21 November 1979.
He studied prehistory, protohistory, and German and Nordic philology at the University of Göttingen, gaining his master's degree with distinction in 2004.
Oehrl subsequently worked as a research assistant at the Seminar for Prehistory and Protohistory at the University of Göttingen, and was in 2006 awarded a doctoral scholarship by the Gerda Henkel Stiftung [de].
He received his Ph.D. summa cum laude from the University of Göttingen in 2008 with a thesis on runestones in Sweden.
He transferred to the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich in 2014, where he gained his habilitation on Old Norse philology and prehistoric archaeology in 2016.